This invention relates to the preparation of consistently variegated soap bars or cakes with well-defined variegation patterns. More particularly, this invention relates to a process and an apparatus that utilize commingling of soap noodles of particular diameters in order to achieve variegated bars or cakes of uniform quality.
Variegated soap bars or cakes containing colored patterns (e.g., marbleization, striation or mottling) have been manufactured for many years. Moreover, processes employing at least two differently colored sets of soap noodles (i.e., each set of noodles being of different color) to achieve such variegation are known.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,673,294 issued June 27, 1972 to R. G. Matthaei, and entitled "Method for Manufacture of Marbelized Soap Bars," discloses a process which employs a first and second preplodder to prepare differently colored soap noodles of from 3.16 inch to 3 inches in diameter which are then coplodded in a final plodder.
Italian Industrial Patent 584,141 granted Oct. 23, 1958 to Mazzoni also discloses a two-color noodle process in which differently colored noodles of unspecified size are gravity fed into a final worm plodder.
British Patent Specification 1,370,670, published Oct. 16, 1974 in the name of the Colgate-Palmolive Company and entitled "Method and Apparatus for the Manufacture of Variegated Soap Bars" discloses a two noodle variegating process utilizing noodles of exceedingly small diameters to produce a marbled bar.
Other efforts in achieving a variegated soap bar with two noodle methods include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,769,225 issued Oct. 30, 1973 to R. G. Matthaei and entitled "Process for Producing Marbleized Soap" which uses dye to color portions of soap noodles or chips on a moving bed prior to plodding; U.S. Pat. No. 3,823,215 issued July 9, 1974 to A. D'Arcangeli and entitled "Process for Producing Variegated Detergent Bars" which discloses a variegating head compacting differently colored extruded soap noodles; and Austrian Patent 95947 issued Feb. 11, 1924 to O. Bauer and entitled "Process and Apparatus for the Preparation of Marbles Soap" which briefly sketches a two noodle soap bar marbleizing process.
While some of these methods may have provided bars on a commercial scale, there is a continuing need for variegated bar processing improvements. More particularly, there is a continuing need for processes and apparatus suitable for commercial production of bars which have little or no undesirable color smearing. There is further need for a process and apparatus which can be used to produce variegated soap bars which consistently possess a desired uniformly distinctive variegated pattern.
Accordingly, it is an object of the instant invention to provide a process and an apparatus for making variegated soap bars or cakes.
It is a further object of the instant invention to provide a process and apparatus for making variegated bars or cakes of substantially uniform appearance at commercially acceptable production rates.
It is a further object of the instant invention to provide a process and apparatus for consistently making variegated soap bars or cakes with little or no undesirable color smearing at commercially acceptable production rates.
It has been surprisingly discovered that by exercising noodle diameter control and by utilizing noodle commingling prior to final plodding, a two color noodle process can be realized which achieves the above-described objectives and which produces variegated soap bars in a manner not suggested by the prior art.